MY ‘ARTS, HEARTS, AND MINDS’ EXHIBIT AND TALK IN THE UK, AND A FILM LISTING FROM IT…

This poster announced the excellent “Voices and Vision in Creative Therapies in Dementia Colloquium and Exhibition” at the University of Worcester, where I had the pleasure of participating as a keynote speaker. The colloquium was a daylong event on September 6th, and the exhibit, "Arts, Hearts and Minds," will be up in the sparkling new Hive Library until September 22nd (see poster at the end of this blog post).

For my Keynote address I created a preliminary list of films--mainstream and documentary--that deal with dementia. I limited my list to those that are in English or subtitled in English, and can be found readily. I believe there are other mainstream films I have missed, and I am CERTAIN that there are documentary films I’ve missed. Please help me to expand the list below so I can share it with others, by sending me an email with your additions (and your comments would be helpful, too!): cathy@LoveLossAndLaughter.com

My hope is that someone reading this will know of analyses of the messages in these films. The best such analysis I have seen is in Anne Basting’s book, Forget Memory. If you know of another, or you have done one yourself or are doing one, please let me know! I believe that visual imagery, whether still photographs or films, has a powerful impact on the way people “see” Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

MAINSTREAM FILMS IN ENGLISH OR SUBTITLED IN ENGLISH

1989 Age Old Friends (also known as A Month of Sundays), (USA) produced by John Kroeker, starring Aaron Alexander, Frummie Blatt, and Hume Cronyn

2001 Iris: A Memoir of Iris Murdoch, (UK) based on the John Bayley book his wife, Iris Murdoch, starring Jim Broadbent, Judi Dench, and Kate Winslet

2001 A Song for Martin (Sweden), English subtitled film directed by Billie August, starring Sven Wollter and VIveka Saldahl, praised as excellent film on caregiving

2001 Firefly Dreams (Japan) subtitled in English, written and directed by John Williams, starring Maho, Tsutomu Niwa, and Etsuko Kimata, winner of several international awards

2003 Finding Nemo, (USA) Pixar Films, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich, Oscar winning animated film with voices by Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould and others

2004 The Notebook, (USA) directed by Nick Cassavetes, starring James Garner and Gena Rowlands

2006 Aurora Borealis (USA/Canada) directed by James C.E.Burke, starring Joshua Jackson, Donald Sutherland, Juliette Lewis and Louise Fletcher

2007 Away from Her, (Canada) directed by Sarah Polley starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsett

2007 The Savages, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney

2009 I Forgot to Tell You (France/Belgium), English subtitled version of J’ai oublié de te dire (2008), written and directed by Laurent Vinas-Raymond, starring Omar Sharif and Emilie Dequenne and Anne Canovas

2011 The Iron Lady, a film about Margaret Thatcher, directed by Phyllida Lloyd with Meryl Streep about Margaret Thatcher, starring Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Anthony Head, Alexandra Roach

A HANDFUL OF DOCUMENTARY FILMS ON DEMENTIA

1994 Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter. Film by Deborah Hoffmann.

2004 The Forgetting – A Portrait of Alzheimer’s David Shenk documentary made for PBS from his book of the same title.

2006 The Later Work of William Utermohlen Produced by Myriad Pharmaceuticals. Film about the German painter’s self portraits after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

2007 There is a Bridge. Directed by Ted Kay, about Michael Verde’s excellent project of the same title

2007 My Name is Lisa, 
 an award-winning YouTube video about a 13-year-old girl and her relationship with her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. http://youtu.be/ZiRHyzjb5SI

2007 Understanding Dementia: The Caregiver’s Notebook. Dementia Care Foundation and Dr. Allen Power. Available from Terranova.org

2009 I Remember Better When I Paint (2009) Berna Huebner and Eric Ellena

2009 The Alzheimer’s Project. Maria Shriver’s 4 film series produced by Maria Shriver films

2010 Bicycle, Spoon, Apple Spain, an awardwinning film by Carlos Bosch on Castillian Pasqual Maragall (in English)

2011 Agnes and Nancy. UK film by Anne Milne as part of Ruth Bartlett’s project, No Limits: Re-Imagining Life with Dementia.

2011 Live Outside the Stigma. One of several excellent DVDs by Richard Taylor, about living with Alzheimer’s

Forthcoming Dec 2012 Alive Inside, a film by Michael Rossato-Bennett, about music and the elderly with a big section on dementia.